Whether viewed as a necessary reform to improve medical standards or as a strategic effort to eliminate competition, the AMA’s actions reduced the number of practicing doctors. According to the argument in the video, the combination of stricter licensing laws, tighter accreditation standards, and coordinated influence over state policy created barriers to entry that reshaped the profession, limiting access in the name of quality while consolidating power among established physicians. This decline affected rural communities, immigrants, Black physicians, and women, who often relied on smaller medical schools that were forced to close. As a result, while the changes were framed as protecting patients, they also functioned to raise doctors’ incomes and reduce competition within the profession.
This is very good, It is important to note that although the quality of doctors increased, the supply decreased and the price of doctors increased. Many of those small schools did have to close yes. They were forced to close because they could not keep up with the higher medical standards and this caused less black people, and women to become doctors because they would normally go to those smaller schools.
This is so true, and even the urban areas that did have access to higher quality medical care were forced to pay much more without a choice as to what quality care they would like to purchase.